We need to let the police know the scale of male violence and entitlement

This is a call to arms for women across the UK. We can’t wait for our leaders to resolve an issue we know is endemic in our society

Sarah Everard’s death has sparked a ‘primal scream’ from the women of the UK (Family handout/Metropolitan Police/PA)

Every woman has a story of male violence, and every woman has a friend who something worse has happened to. I was on the tube in a skirt and I spotted a man trying to film my legs on his camera. I confronted him and he ran away. I had a friend catch her housemate of seven years trying to film her in the shower. She kicked him out.

Another friend, when taking her Covid PCR test, had security standing close behind her telling her to “learn not to gag”. She told him to back off. Yet another friend was dragged across her flat by her boyfriend because he suspected she was texting another guy. She broke up with him.

What do these stories have in common? This is male harassment against women and none of us reported it.

Online, there has been a primal scream from the women of the UK who have heard the disturbing details of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa’s cases. We appreciate that statistically we are unlikely to be murdered by a stranger, but we recognise the violence that Sarah suffered. We recognise the way those men felt entitled to their bodies.

This is a call to arms for women across the UK. We can’t wait for our leaders to resolve an issue we know is endemic in our society. We need to flood the police with our complaints to show the monumental scale of the problem.

If someone flashes you, report it. If someone curb crawls you, report it. If someone grabs your arse, report it. These are escalating behaviours and need to be addressed. This isn’t victim blaming. It’s acknowledging that we are taught to shrug these incidents off or pretend they don’t affect us.

According to a survey published in March 2021 by the APPG for UN Women, 71 per cent of women of all ages in the UK have experienced some form of sexual harassment in a public space. The two main reasons women cited for not reporting incidents are: “I didn’t think the incident was serious enough to report” (55 per cent) and “I didn’t think reporting it would help” (45 per cent).

As women, we need to stop shouldering the burden alone and at the very least, make sure our lived experience is acknowledged and documented. Every time you report something, you are reminding the authorities that this is unacceptable and not the kind of world we want to bring up our daughters in.

And if you are able to get a conviction, as painful and as time consuming as it is, it’s worth it because you are protecting the women around you from falling victim to the same entitlement that ultimately killed Sarah and Sabina.

The more reporting and the more convictions we get, the louder our message. These men with their dark desires are cowards who need to learn they aren’t entitled to anything without consent.